DiabloFans

I agree with Oakover, when you're first starting out, you can start the trial and tp back to town before it the countdown timer starts and you'll get a level 1 key. Start there and just run through it like normal and you should get 3-4 extra grifts in, but when you get decent equipment and can do t5/t6 then I think normal rifts will end up with a better return. Once you get really geared and can do 30+ grfits quickly then it might be time to switch back to grifts. Just depends on where you are.

Play Hardcore. See how far you can get. It definitely makes the game more exciting because it's not only about gear now, it's also about surviving. It also forces you to look at skills in a little different way and a lot of times you'll end up using skills you never would have before. It really opens the game up and the first time you get into a hairy situation where you almost die, you'll really know what you were missing.

I see what Bagstone is saying about bringing back the days of 99.9% useless items, and I'm probably the worst person to comment on this because I *liked* those days, but I'm personally really upset with how gear dependent builds are for almost all of the classes. It gets to the point where you can't really start playing the way you want to until you find 7-8 particular pieces, and by then, what are you searching for? A couple little pieces to fill out the corners. I'll give you a couple examples:

My HC Crusader is using a stampede build. To do this at all, you need 6 pieces of akkahn (or 5+rorg, still 6 pieces) and the Phalanx shield. That's over half of my item slots taken up already before I get to even USE my build. If you add in specific pieces that you almost need to do permanant Akkhan, CDR ring, CDR belt, Strongarm bracers, etc you end up with even less pieces to farm for once you've got the items for your build put together. This leads to a pretty miserable existence imo where now i'm not looking for new equipment, but marginally better versions of the same thing I have. It leads to incredibly long periods of time where I just feel like I'm playing to play with no in game reward other than paragon points.

That's why I like the idea of Ancient items. Sure, they are just different versions of the same gear, but they are significantly better, and I think that makes a big difference.

My wife on the other hand will only play Diablo an hour or so a day for a couple days a week. It's literally impossible for her to do ANY of the popular builds because they all require 6+ specific items and they aren't common enough to pick up with the amount of time she'll commit to it. I point this out just to mitigate a little of the sentiment that "well now with ancient items only the serious players (and bots) that play 24/7 are going to be able to compete on the leaderboards" because we're kind of at the point already where anyone playing T6 consistently is playing more than they should have to be.

I think I wasted all my luck because I found the Akkhan pieces fairly quickly, but I have yet to see a Furnace or a single Unity, let alone both. I swapped over to some CDR gloves last night and that helps a little bit, but I'm leery of swapping into more CDR without knowing exactly how much I need on pieces to hit what I need. I'm thinking of swapping the Bane of the Powerful for the Gorok of Swiftness, but I'm leery about losing that much dps.

I'm getting to the point where it's a little harder to find obvious upgrades here. I hit the leaderboard last night on GR 27 and I was literally 1 second away from finishing a 28, so the hunger is insatiable atm. I'm a little short on CDR atm and I'm currently farming for a new RORG and a relevant Hellfire amulet, but is there something else I should be changing or looking for?

Much thanks guys!

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Telquessir-1437/hero/51911730

PS: I've asked Kadala politely about a million times for a Furnace, but she swears it doesn't exist

There was a drop rate change on the set pieces around 2.1 which is just before the seasons started. So yes, you're seeing more people with full sets. In addition to that, once you have a full set, it becomes MUCH easier to farm higher difficulty levels, which obviously results in more Legendary find chances.

There's no mysterious force behind season drop rates. As others have pointed out in this thread, those that ignored the seasons and continued to play non-season are experiencing the same thing.

I thought it was a little cool and interesting the first time, but there's nothing cool about Whimseydaleshire itself. I was hoping for some sort of resplendent chest at least. This might be a good opportunity for something fun like a rainbow dye or something. Right now you just lose out on a chance to hit the Vault.

http://diablodamagecalculator.com/

You should be able to pull the stats from your details in game and see how each one affects the numbers

Quote from Belloc

Quote from JKlimek

These are not extremely rare, but there is a glitch still with the name of the object when it's unidentified. Since it's blank, it doesn't show up unless you mouse over it and then it shows [ ]. It's probably a good idea to have some sound on so that you hear the legendary notification and it's a good habit to move your mouse back and forth across the area the rift guardian died after you've picked everything up. All of mine (5~6) have been from RGs.

They are extremely rare, actually. Probably the rarest drop category in the game (or tied with legendary potion drops).

Sorry, I don't have a link to back it up, but I thought it was on the same level of rarity as the set pieces. It's definitely not as rare as something like Tasker and Theo, Wand of Woh, Furnace, etc, but it IS a TORMENT ONLY legendary for sure.

These are not extremely rare, but there is a glitch still with the name of the object when it's unidentified. Since it's blank, it doesn't show up unless you mouse over it and then it shows [ ]. It's probably a good idea to have some sound on so that you hear the legendary notification and it's a good habit to move your mouse back and forth across the area the rift guardian died after you've picked everything up. All of mine (5~6) have been from RGs.

Bounties are much faster than rifts as long as you are getting them turned in quickly. It's the bounty bonus XP that makes them worth the while, not the enemies you kill along the way. Knowing the bounties inside and out (what 4-5 locations can the Caves show up in the Fields for example, the rough layout of the Spider Caves, what tilesets the shrines and chests can show up on, etc) is where you'll get the best bang for your buck.

That said, you have to be playing as high on MP as you can finish quickly and you have to be playing multiplayer. Solo play is so far behind right now it's not even funny. Do bounties in groups of likeminded people, but don't forget that *you do not get bounty bonus xp if you are not on the same map as the bounty when it's completed.* In other words, you can't do split bounties for xp because you will only get bounty xp for the ones you complete and the special events your teammates do. If you have a good team that can follow directions then you can get a bounty to the point where it's almost complete (kill 98/100 enemies for example) and then wait until the whole group can TP to you to finish the bounty. If you have four players doing that you can tp quickly and finish all four off quickly and move on to the boss together.

^ Me too. I love how players beg for this auto pickup and they finally implement it... at the same time as legendary potions which are strictly better than regular potions. I'm not sure why potions even take up inventory slots.

Oh, also, if you care to, there are communities for goblin farming that you can join where people post when they've found a goblin and three lucky players join in for the kill. It's very fast and you can make some good online friends if that's your bag.

There are a lot of posts here that are definitely places that have goblins, however they take too much time to search because they include either a random location (Caves) or have a random maze-esque map (Cathedral, Halls 2, etc). If you really are serious about farming efficiently, then you need a quick, small, straightforward map. My run is:

1) Core of Arreat (Act 3)- This is a straight line, no muss, no fuss, just run through as fast as you can.
2) Tower of the damned 1 (Act 3) - Just a big circle, again, no side corridors, no dead ends.
3) Northern Highlands (Act 1) - This is a very small area that you can basically just run a circle around the edge of the map and a quick jaunt through the middle.

Repeating these three is the fastest way. If you have some good mobility, the whole thing shouldn't take you more than a couple minutes. Sure, you can teleport to other locations and run around, and yeah, they'll probably have a goblin, but I guarantee you can do all three of these locations faster than one Halls 2, and each area is only likely to have 1 chance at a goblin, so your best bet to find goblins quickly is to search the small straightforward maps.

Very likely to get a legendary is not guaranteed 99% != 100%

It's great to know that the organ drops are guaranteed now at A6, but it's still not special enough to justify being worth the amount of effort that you go through. I appreciate the extra passive, but I don't think these are build-maker items and with the amount of effort that goes in to them, they should be. I find it sad that they won't take a few moments to make these things better (They've publicly stated that they'd rather focus on new events like grifts and seasons rather than rehash "old" things like Hellfire Rings).